Rife with Therapies

In a series of columns over the last year, one of the New York Times’ right-leaning opinion writers, Ross Douthat, has shared parts of his personal story of dealing with chronic illness. These columns, excerpted from a published memoir, describe his long journey to discover the identity of an illness that began with a small red swelling under his ear but quickly escalated to overtake his entire body with unbearable agony.

Desperate to learn what was causing such excruciating chest pains that he felt perpetually on the verge of cardiac arrest and constant, immobilizing inflammation of his stomach, throat, and bowels, he consulted numerous neurologists, cardiologists, and gastroenterologists. He underwent a battery of tests of blood and urine, cranial and abdominal scans and more.

When all of this turned up nothing, Douthat began to doubt the reality of his own experience. “The pain was crushing,” he writes, “but what were mere feelings set against the certainties of so many doctors, the negative readings of my blood?”

A consultation with the head of infectious diseases at a major hospital, an appointment that took six weeks to get and lasted all of 15 minutes, left him completely hopeless. The doctor “spread his hands. ‘There’s just a lot we don’t understand about the human body… A lot of mystery, you know? But you’re young and healthy, you’ll feel better. The important thing is that we can rule things out — that’s what we do here.’ Then, into the awkward silence: ‘And if you need a mental-health referral, we can definitely help with that.’ ”